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16 May 2014

For Giger: Against the Gigeresque

H.R. Giger's imagery so deeply influenced the
imaginations of film production designers, tattoo artists, fashionistas,
magazine illustrators, skateboard designers, and just about everyone other than
My Little Pony animators that at this point it's difficult to separate
Giger from the gigeresque. What was once outré, repulsive, and disturbing
became the Thomas Kincaid style for the cyber/goth set, a quick kitsch to
perform a certain idea of taste. You hang Christmas
Cottage in your living room to display your pleasant, unthreatening
Christianity; I put a poster of Giger’s Li
I on my bedroom wall to show how transgressive I am in my deep, dark soul.
Each is a sign that communicates immediately, without any need to look for more
than a second, because each communicates not through itself but through all the
associations is has accumulated.

Of course, this is not fair to Giger the artist,
who was much more than his most popular tropes. But that's about as useful as
saying van Gogh is much more than a sunflower, a starry sky, and a bandaged
ear: obvious, yes, but also beside the point. Giger is mourned and remembered
because of the gigeresque.